Failing Banks & Sporty Bankers.

BANKING industry; BUSINESS failures; FINANCE; FINANCIAL institutions; ECONOMICS

The article focuses on failure of banks in the U.S. Perhaps the most startling thing about the current U.S. bank failures is the fact that the star witness and chief target of the Senate's Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, now holding hearings on the failures, was himself a star graduate of the American banking system. Don C. Silverthorne, 61-year-old founder of the woe-stricken San Francisco National Bank, worked his way up from messenger to executive of the Bank of America and held high positions in other leading banks on the West Coast. Finally he became vice president in charge of loans for the Transamerica Corporation which controls banks with 300 offices throughout the West. Silverthorne's bank was the largest to close in the U.S. in more than thirty years, but it is only rnie of a dozen that have failed.